Overview
Dubbed the “Untamed Mountain Bike Championship,” the ABSA Cape Epic is the crown jewel of endurance MTB racing. Spanning across 900 km of rugged terrain over 8 days, the 2025 edition tested not just the riders—but also the technology tasked with delivering the event live to the world. Set deep in South Africa’s wine country and mountain ranges, where cellular coverage is sparse and terrain is extreme, the challenge of broadcasting this event required a solution that could meet two critical demands: rock-solid connectivity and reliable multicam coverage across vast distances.
The Challenge
The ABSA Cape Epic 2025 was no ordinary sporting event. With steep climbs, remote trails, and unpredictable weather, the broadcast team faced the following challenges:
- Low to zero cellular coverage in many areas.
- A 900 km race route across 8 days of mountainous terrain.
- The need for multicam coverage with up to 21 simultaneous video feeds.
- An expectation of high-quality, low-latency video from constantly moving camera views like helicopters, motorbikes, and drones.
This dynamic REMI setup would require stable, bonded video contribution from a wide variety of sources—static positions, high-speed mobile units, and aerial platforms alike. With expectations sky-high, fans of high-stakes endurance sports like the Cape Epic demanded the ability to follow the action live, uninterrupted, and in high quality—no matter how remote the location or how fast the riders moved.
The Solution
To meet these extreme production demands, Master Dealer Africa deployed a comprehensive broadcast ecosystem, anchored by Prism encoders and decoders and the Teradek Core cloud video orchestration platform.
Key Components:
- 21 Prism encoders and 17 Prism decoders, a few of which were housed in custom backpacks for on-trail streaming.
- Centralized routing through Teradek Core, spanning 8 Hyperion servers for dynamic load balancing and increased stream reliability.
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17 live camera sources, funneled into 4 parallel broadcast streams.
Remote contribution units included:
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- 2 helicopters
- 2 e-bikes equipped with custom-built Teradek Prism backpacks
- 3 motorbikes with mobile camera crews
- 2 drones
- Start and finish line cameras
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All live feeds—moving or stationary—were seamlessly encoded and routed through Core, which allowed for centralized monitoring, stream switching, and real-time broadcast output to multiple destinations.
This behind-the-scenes look shows the drone operator demonstrating how his drone’s live video feed transmitted in real time via the Prism Mobile Backpack and routed through Teradek Core. Proving how agile, reliable, and mobile the system really is in a high-stakes, low-connectivity environment.
The Results
Despite the extreme terrain and remote locations, the system delivered exceptional video quality, minimal latency, and great stability across the full 8-day event.
- Zero stream dropouts across the Hyperion server network
- Consistently high video quality, even from the aerial video sources and other mobile units in mountainous regions
- Simplified stream management for a complex multicam shoot via the centralized Core dashboard
- A highly engaged audience of 127,000-189,000 YouTube views on each live video stream.
The ABSA Cape Epic 2025 proved that even in the most unforgiving environments, Teradek technology can deliver. With 21 live feeds riding along mountains, bikes, and helicopters, and a centralized cloud infrastructure running through Core, Master Dealer Africa showed the world how the “Untamed” can be captured, streamed, and shared—flawlessly.